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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Being a Teenager Through the Eyes of Stevee

Unfortunately not as interesting as "Being a Teenager Through the Eyes of Hanna, Teenage Assassin"

What follows is a mess of a post. Because that's what being a teen is all about...

If there is one thing that I loathe more than anything in this world, it is the idea of a hipster. The people who think they're too cool for the mainstream, and make a habit to tell you so by degrading whatever slice of mainstream pie you like. Teenagers seems to think that this is the pathway to being cool. No matter what, mainstream can still be cool. However, while I was out walking my dog today, I came to some strange conclusion that, well...

Being hipster is now extremely mainstream.

And then I realised, what even was a hipster? It is all about the corners we back into. And those corners are pods on the internet. I belong to many different pods, each of which have a lot of different people, who have very different ideas of me and the things I like.

Let's start with Facebook, and the every day people that fill the world that I really inhabit. I'm not going to get into your average discussion about high school stereotypes, because truth be told, there isn't really a lot of that going on in New Zealand (not from my experiences, anyway). I could say the simplest thing about film, such as The Social Network is directed by David Fincher, and I've had people reply "oh my gosh, you know so much about movies." This is one of those situations best described by those "What society thinks I do, What teachers think I do, What I actually do..." memes that were going around the internet a while back. When people ask me what I'm doing and I reply "oh, I'm just blogging", here's the basic rundown:

What society thinks I do: Write graffiti with punctuation. Thanks for that, Contagion.
What teachers think I do: Not homework. But I do homework when I have to, thank you very much.
What my parents think I do: Talk to people on Facebook.
What I think I do: Write Roger Ebert worthy stuff, which also make you roll on the floor laughing.
What I actually do: Write messy thinklings like this and then rave about Ezra Miller even though he has nothing to do with anything.
What people on Facebook think I do: Reblog photos on Tumblr.
Which brings me to Tumblr. Before I begin on this spiel, I'd like to say that a) don't show this to people on Tumblr and b) I go on there quite often. It has been a nice little place, for the most part, where I just reblog a whole lot of quotes from movies and pictures of nice-looking guys and probably anything that has Jessica Chastain in it, and then move on with my daily life. Lately, however, Tumblr has become the latest drug amongst my fellow school mates. Which is strange because I've been on there since 2010, but they've waited until now to join in (does that make me hipster?). Now, all I've known of Tumblr is reblogging gifs of funny movie quotes, but never did I stop to realise how Tumblr works for people who don't like movies. All that is reblogged are photos of hair, strange half-cut tops, high-waisted skirts...anything indie with a vintage effect layered over it, and you'll see it on Tumblr. Tumblr is actually a collective hipster paradise, where people can go and be hipster with each other, making being hipster awfully mainstream. But one thing that Tumblr will never ever be is a blog site. Unless you write posts filled with lots and lots of words that mean a lot, Tumblr just isn't it. To me, Tumblr is basically like a scrapbook, but instead of cutting the photos of things you like out of magazines, you reblog them. Essentially, all you're doing is taking other people's work to make up your own persona. I'm totally fine with that, but when I look at this actual blog, I see actual work: most of which I've come up with myself, after hours of slaving over it in my brain and then on the keyboard. Maybe it means something, maybe it doesn't. But the thing is, no-one should be able to use me in their scrapbook and call it their own.

If you do have a scrapbook and you think that I'm an inspirational mofo, then you're more than welcome to take my words. I'm happy to inspire, as long as you don't put my words in helvetica on top of a random photo with a vintage effect.

While I may be a genius in the real world because I know things like the fact that The Social Network is directed by David Fincher, and The Artist won Best Picture this year, I'm nothing but a beginner in the blogging/film world. There's a lot that I haven't seen, there's a lot that I don't know, and what I do know seems a little juvenile sometimes. It always makes me laugh how different my 'universes' are, but I'm glad they're like that. I'm happy that everyone has universes, because that's what makes us all different.

And there's that word, "different". For many people, they think that to be different is to be hipster. Nope, it is just being different. Imagine for a minute that there isn't a "mainstream". Just because I don't like supposedly cool movies like Battleship doesn't make me a snob, I'm just not a fan of board game adaptations. Just because I listen to music with no words in it doesn't make me an old, lonely person with lots of melancholic problems. Just because I love Christopher Nolan, I'm not a raging fangirl. Just because I stay at home and do homework on the weekends doesn't make me a nerd, it just means that I might be an astronaut one day (haha). I may write a lot, but I'm not one foot in a mental home. Let's all hold hands and open our minds. Let's not be defined by everyone else, but let ourselves be awesome on our own accord. If you happen to like something a lot of other people like, then that's fine. If you happen to like things that no-one else likes, then that's cool too. Just don't become a carbon copy of someone else, or everyone else, for that matter. Have universes. Lots and lots of them. And if you really think that your Tumblr is expressing yourself even though you're reblogging stuff from other people, try being yourself. If everyone is hipster now, they've kind of defeated the purpose of being a hipster. You can never defeat the purpose of being yourself. I know, I am a very inspirational person.

So yeah, that's what is going through my head at the moment, besides the good old "I'mhungryEZRAMILLERwhycan'tIbeJessicaChastainstillhungry". If it made sense, then that's a bonus.

25 comments:

Excellent stuff. I like a good ramble and this was fun to read. I do often get targeted from idiotic haters who say that I am things like a "hipster" for liking certain films. It's a dangerous world to be a fan of Gus van Sant's GERRY or Jim Jarmusch's THE LIMITS OF CONTROL (those are the two films I've actually been called a "hipster weirdo" for loving).

Loved this post. I agree with everything you said about the use of Tumblr, too. I find it hard to come across Tumblr's that actually have original work on them, unless they're artwork based, which, when used well, can produce some great stuff.

I think the difference between a physical and online scrapbook is Tumblr is there for everyone to see it. I've made many scrapbook journals with some of my drawings, collages, random bits, etc. over the years, and it is something that is personal to me - I believe this is the whole point of a scrapbook.

Reblogging something on Tumblr doesn't take a lot of effort, and for most users, what you describe that gets reblogged is pretty much on the mark.

Tumblr does have some great artists and photoshoppers on there. But they're so hard to find.

What I find that is Tumblr is basically all the same. People reblog stuff, so essentially they're just making copies of what everyone else has done, and it just keeps going that way. That's not blogging. Well, not to me anyway.

Haha hipsterdom is funny. It's like the most mainstream thing out there. I don't get the love or hate for them. It's a fad- it will pass. I actually have hipster glasses presently and this phase hasn't reached India yet, so people here call them nerdy, and I'm all "Hipster- you probably haven't heard of it" AND NO ONE GETS IT! So annoying!

Totally agree with people being happy liking whatever they like. I think Tumblr is a scrapbook too. And it's fun. I like posting a 100 photos of some male model I find hot or some movie or quotes from a book. That's so me, but that isn't *all* of me, if you know what I mean.

The irony is my sister and brother accused me of being a hipster because I watch a lot of old movies and they've "never heard of them". (Well, and I also wore frames for a while too.) Thankfully, that phase between me and them was short-lived.

I also agree that Tumblr is a scrapbook. For me, it's for photos of actors I *cough* "admire" (for lack of a tamer word) and actresses I partly envy (for looks, talent, actors they've nabbed or all of the above). I rarely talk about my life there. (That's for Twitter.)

And I turn 19 in less than two weeks. *sob* I don't want to grow up...

Great post. I personally try to avoid copying other peoples opinions, and i think i've done a pretty good job of that. And i think i had a tumblr some time ago, but never really used it. I've thought of making one now, although it would probably mostly consist of whatever Deborah Ann Woll pictures i could find and not much else

In defense of Tumblr...The main niche on there is reblogging and sharing things related to fandom. Harry Potter, Doctor Who etc are two popular ones. If you're in any fandoms it's really a great place to be. =)

The whole hipster thing drives me nuts. I'm in Mexico right now, and I bought a sundress. The Lady who sold it to me called it very "hipster-ish" I wrote that off as being lost in translation. I wore it today, and another American called it hipster-ish too! Are sundresses in the hipster manual?

Also Tumbler gets really creepy at times. I like it for reblogging amusing things, but there are some pretty strong fandoms on there.

Haha... love the story about "The Social Network is directed by David Ficher....". I started blogging because I wanted to share my passion with people with similar interests. People at my office are just not into movies or casual-movie- watchers at best.

I find that blogging is really good for sharing passion with people who have similar interests. It is just so scary how much I have to degrade my knowledge in the real world ;)

Haha, that sounds like me. People always go, "oh, when is this movie coming out?" at work, and all of my colleagues just stare blankly at the customer. And then I'm like "oh, that comes out next week", and they all look at me like I'm a genius.

Great post! Inspirational words, indeed. I think being different is normal (whatever that means), but the problem is that hipsters tend to go out of their way to be different, instead of just being themselves.

Great little angsty rant. I urge you to simultaneously embrace and laugh at the face of Hipsterdom. Irony is a funny thing, and with 100 years of film making history, everything is becoming cliché so when you start to notice references to the past in Tarantino-esque movies you realise - our generation is just a bunch of hipsters.

Oh, I love rambling posts, I had one or two, as well, the first one being a very angry "letter" to indie, art-house picture and their boring, too bohem nature.

I really liked what you said here: "The people who think they're too cool for the mainstream, and make a habit to tell you so by degrading whatever slice of mainstream pie you like."- you are so right, I read about this people all the time and they just annoy me; it's like they think they're superior just because they've heard of Palma Violets or something, and I haven't. The good thing is I don't know personally a lot of hipsters, so I am ok for now :)

As for the Tumblr thing, I agree, it is basically a scrapbook, and I love it. I don't reblog as much, but I do like and follow certain tags from time to time. I'm actually on Tumblr more often than Facebook.